Hot Dog Wagon

The hot dog shaped food stand has returned to East Colonial Drive next to the Love Hut.

Restuarants Falling Like Dominos

This observation is worth noting on the Downtown blog, even though the area of East Colonial Drive near Herndon Executive Airport is on the fringe. It's worth noting because it is downtown's closest location to find all the chain restaurants, and they have been closing down on a daily basis this year. They will blame it on the current economic climate, which is the straw that broke the chain's back, but it was horrible customer service, high prices, and mediocre food that truly was the reason behind the failure of these restaurants.

The latest victim, and the one that made me go wow, was Denny's. Yes, that is what I said. Denny's has been at that E. Colonial Drive location longer than my 30 years in Orlando. There used to be a Krispy Kreme donuts next door. It went out of business, and then 10 years later, the donut chain that nobody cared for is resurrected as donut saviors. Go figure.

I remember this Denny's in its heyday, when it was packed every weekend by sailors from the long gone Orlando Naval Training Center. There was often a long wait on the weekends to get in, and as they say, all good things must come to an end. The turmoil that went on in this Denny's was a regular event. I often sat at the counter and was amazed by the angry disposition, and pure laziness of the staff there. Someone was always arguring with someone, and they seemed oblivious to the fact that these petty spats with each other only caused them to lose focus of their customers, and their tips.

Denny's joins the following who have closed up shop all within a mile stretch of each other in a matter of months.

Bennigans
TGI Fridays
CiCi's Pizza
Uno Chicago Grill
Longhorn Steakhouse
Fazolis (They stopped serving their complimentary bread sticks)
Straubs (Not a chain but all the same, and institution)
Barney's (Ditto)

My bet is Burger King will be the next victim. Their addition of Ribs to the menu, and the fact that they ruined their French Fries years ago by changing them to some sort of chemical glob, shows that they are desparate. If they would just stop their inane practice of nuking their burgers in the microwave, it would go a long way to increasing sales. That will be followed by Boston Market, and then finally, by the death of the Pizza Hut on Maguire, another bastion of customer service neglect.

I say take them all off of life support, and let them go, they all died long ago, just that nobody noticed,

Plaza Cinema Cafe Opens Downtown

Went to the grand opening of the Plaza Cinema Cafe Friday after work. The Plaza Cinema Cafe is the long awaited movie theatre that has opened on Orange Avenue. I walked over after work to see an early showing of Star Trek. Cost was only $4.75 for admission. There was plenty of beautiful signage outside but nothing to tell you how to get to the box office. It's on the second floor up the escalator. I took an educated guess, and headed up.

By the way, parking is $10 (valet) with lots of attendants. There wasn't anything to indicate if the theatre was validating, but there was a number of ATM machines to use for paying parking located right outside the box office so I'll assume your out 10 bucks if you don't live or work in the downtown area.

The lobby is confusing, and small with lots of ropes when you get in, and I was a bit taken back trying to figure out where to present my ticket. You go either left or right depending on what theatre your movie is playing, and you show your tickets before heading down the hallway. I thought the theatre was playing up its bar and enhanced food, but the front is layed out like a typical concession stand with candy and popcorn. There is a menu with things like pizza, salads, subs, shrimp, chicken strips, and nachos. All are reasonably priced, but out of sight from the typical popcorn and candy.

Inside the nicely appointed theatres, there are large leather rocking chairs layed out in typical stadium fashion. Between each seat is a very small cocktail table just big enough for a drink and one other item. There is a good deal of room between you and the row in front, so if some late asshole arrives after the movie starts, you shouldn't have to stand up or end up with food on your lap. The chairs reminded me of 1st class airline seats that rocked. The theatre I attended featured digital projection and a kick ass sound system. They need to adjust the sound levels because they were set one notch below bleeding ear drums. They don't play anything while you wait, no music or advertisements. I'm sure that will change.

The only mishap we encountered, was the movie started and played without the projector on through the first preview, before someone from the theater got up and ran outside to tell them. They stopped the show, and restarted it a minute later and all was good. The theatres have these annoying flourescents side lamps, that don't like to be dimmed, so they occasionally blink on and off during the show.

All in all a great experience, but I can't tell if the movie lineup of classic films from way gone past is just a grand opening thing, or if the theatre will be showing first run movies at all. Advertising and marketing doesn't seem like this chain's expertise. They need to step it up a bit, if they are ever going to survive downtown. Everyone I've told about my trip to the Plaza Cinema Cafe give me that quizzical look, and then tell me they've never heard about it. Of course, they don't live downtown.

Oh, and one more tip. When you go down the long hallway to the movie theatres on each side, if you keep going down to the end, you'll find a cute little wine bar overlooking Orange Avenue. Had I known it was there, I might have arrived early for the film, and enjoyed a nice glass of wine or two before heading inside the the theatre. I was surprised that nobody told us this when they took our ticket. Stupid is what stupid does.

Hot Dog Vendor Gone

Although I never ate anything there, the hot dog vender in the giant hot dog and bun shaped trailer is no longer at the corner of Colonial Drive and Ferncreek in the parking lot of the Chevron gas station. As of today, the only thing left is an outline of grease and dirt. The hot dog stand was featured in that Larry the Cable Guy Health Inspector movie that was filmed in Orlando. Even in good economic times, I wondered how that guy made a living selling dogs and burgers from the stand, but I just loved that giant hot dog stand and it will be missed.

Grafitti Junktion

A new burger bar opened up on Washington Street in the building formerly occupied by Midnight Blue, and I for one, was pleased that it was not another overpriced and trendy Thornton Park eatery. I for one prefer a casual neighborhood place where I can get a drink and a good burger. Too bad this place offers neither.

My first try we ordered a chicken nachos, and when the huge platter came out looking like it had ground beef on it, we sucked it up and ate it thinking it wasn't bad. But when we asked whether we had been served the wrong nachos, they told us the chicken was ground and seasoned like beef and that yes, they had served us the correct order. Oops, bad on our part for thinking our chicken nachos would have something that looked like chicken on them. After we found out they were chicken, and not beef, our opinion of them changed drastically. We lwould have iked them better if they had been beef, but as chicken, they just plain sucked.

When our burgers arrived, wow, we were impressed. Loved the fresh baked bun. When we took a bite, our opinion again changed. To put it kindly, the burger sucked. We ordered them medium, and they were what I would call WELL DONE. Not an ounce of juice, dark in the center, and crispy enough on the edges that the beef was crunchy. When the new owners stopped by the table to ask how our meal had been, we were totally honest with them about the nachos not meeting our expectations, and the burgers being overcooked. The owner then quizzed us on what we thought a MEDIUM burger should look like, and we answered "pink in the center" and he told us, that when they served them like that, customers complained that they weren't cooked enough. I'm not a snob, but I know the difference between rare, medium, and well done beef and was a bit shocked he didn't.

That was the end of our meal, and my dining companion said no more trips to Grafitti for him, but always to give a place a second chance, I came back a week later with my brother, not daring to tell him this was a new place, and that I had a bad experience there the week prior.

This time we tried an appetizer of wings. Couldn't believe it when they came out within 7 minutes. We even said, wow, that was awful fast for wings. We took one bite, and YUMMY, they were awesome, took another bite and UGH, BLOODY!!!! No, we did not order our wings RARE! When we mentioned it to the waitress, she actually said "maybe the chicken is just more red" and we looked at her strangely as she walked away.

A few minutes later, another waitress brought us our 'medium' burgers, and without saying a thing to him, the first thing my brother says when he takes a bite of his burger is "wow, kinda crunchy and dry, didn't we order these medium?" Ugh, I couldn't believe it, another bad experience.

On a side note, we ordered another round of draft beer, and after several attempt of them trying to pour a beer, my brother saw them take 3 bottles from the cooler and pour them into our beer mugs and serve them without even telling us they had made the switch.

When our waitress finally returned, we showed her the plate of bloody wings, and she finally admitted that the kitchen pre-cooks the wings, and then just blanches them in the oil before serving. Obviously, they didn't cook them enough. To her credit, she did remove the charge for the wings from our bill without us having to ask, but we did have to point out the bloody mess before she admitted to what happened.

So here is the skinny. This place obviously doesn't have a qualified chef behind the scenes and I think the food is just an excuse to have a liquor license. Go for a drink, and avoid the burgers unless you want it well done and crispy, which seems to be the only way you will get them. If you want a great burger cooked to order, go to Fuddruckers.

Hamburger Mary's Grand Opening

Been a while since I blogged, but felt the need to spread the word about Orlando's newest gay friendly restaurant Hamburger Mary's, which opened at ghost town once known as Church Street Station. Things are beginning to pick up with only a few vacant store fronts in this area, but the crowds are thin at night, and non existent during the days.

So on the Mary's. Went to the grand opening on Thursday May 8 after getting an email from the restaurant's web site. Kudos to the Mary's marketing team for including a coupon, even though I was too lazy to print it out. If you are going to Mary's, be prepared to shell out $5 for parking somewhere downtown as convenient parking is nowhere to be found. We arrived at 7:30 p.m. to a nice crowd, in what surprised me as an extremely small foot print. I hadn't been to the space that was formerly a Toojays. I knew it when it was the Western Clothing Store long long ago. The space had been nicely renovated. Cozy but nice. I was expecting a wait, so was pleasantly surprised to be seated immediately.

There were lots of gays, lesbians, and straights, of all ages but the overall majority was gay and most new each other, or exchanged familiar glances across the restaurant. Our waiter greeted us pretty quickly, gave us menus, and took our drink orders. So far, so good. Our drinks arrived within an acceptable time, and I have to admit, was quite tasty. I appreciated the extremely fresh tasting pineapple juice with my vodka. As we got comfy, several large groups began to arrive and the restaurant quickly filled to capacity. Within minutes, there was a 30 minute wait for a table.

Now here is where things went from fine to DISASTER. I was expecting the service to be spotty since, after all, it was opening night. This wasn't a national franchise with huge training dollars and lots of experience opening new restaurants. I was expecting a bumpy ride. Too bad my dining companions were not.

I think it was a good 90 minutes before even a hint our food would arrive. When you are at a full restaurant, and you only see 5 plates come out of the kitchen within 90 minutes, you know there is a BIG problem ahead. The staff seemed oblivious to any of the issues. They had obviously been dealing with them all day, and were resigned to the fact that nothing could be done. Our waiter seemed almost non-existent during our entire meal. He stopped by the table once every 45 minutes to offer us new drinks. Since nobody was getting food in the entire restaurant, you had to wonder what the wait staff was so busy with.

When we finally got our meal of burgers and chicken, they were not served with any condiments, and we weren't offered any. We were never offered water, and I ate my entire meal without a beverage. My cocktail had ran out easily an hour before. Most of the restaurant could be seen going to the bars and serving their own tables. There seemed to be management present, but they seemed pre-0ccupied with dimming the lights, and adjusting the sound. When we arrived at our 2 hour point, and one of our table mates order had still not arrived, we asked the manager to check on it, and he never returned.

Our dinner of 3 hamburgers and one chicken entree lasted 3 hours. Many of the diners around us gave up after waiting 2 hours for their meals, and left the restaurant without paying. We finally paid our check. There wasn't one apology offered, one drink or appetizer comped. There was not one attempt at service recovery the entire night. I felt sorry for the servers and management of this new restaurant. They had an opportunity to make good in a very forgiving environment and they failed miserably.

As we left the restaurant, we saw several of our friends leaving on the sidewalk, and were shocked to hear that they never got their food, and were now heading to another restaurant in search of something to eat. I would not recommend anyone risking a trip Hamburger Mary's in the near future. I'd give them a couple of months to learn good customer service, and then try again. For now, I'll go back to Friend's for my burgers.

First Sign of Spring

There are only a few things I get excited about these days, but the first "official" day of spring is one of them. I consider it "official" the day my crepe myrtles pop every year and today was it. It is truly amazing, that virtually overnight, thousands of small green leaves appear on my crepe myrtles.

So today is the "official" first day of spring for me.